Juveniles Tried As Adults Essay

1764 words - 7 pages

Since the beginning of civilization there has been a belief that people should be punished for their actions, this soon led to the development of law enforcement. At some point in time it was determined that age doesn’t make a difference and that if a juvenile committed a similar crime to that of an adult, there should be equal consequences. In the United States there are two types of courts, there is juvenile court as well as an adult court, in some cases a juvenile because of the severity of his or her crime is brought into the adult courtroom in order to be tried as an adult. This happens quite frequently in the United States. There are some people who feel that this is the right way to go about things while there are advocates who feel that this falls under the category of cruel and unusual punishment. The eighth amendment to the constitution of the United States is the amendment that eliminates cruel and unusual punishments. I believe that if you subject a child to be tried as an adult that falls under the category of cruel and unusual punishment, juveniles can sometimes be tried unfairly as the struggles in their lives are often overlooked and because of this they are convicted as adults given ridiculous sentences and as a result their lives are thrown away.
There are many instances where a juvenile is not given a fair trial or he or she was not properly defended. One case in particular was the case of Johnny Frank Garrett. Johnny was a boy who was mentally handicapped he was brought into custody for the rape and murder of a nun. Johnny was not even considered a suspect until a psychic who worked with the police to help solve crimes had a dream in which she saw the killer, she gave an address, a description of the killer and a name of Mr. Clyde. Johnny lived at the address given, matched the description perfectly and had a dog named Mr. Clyde. Johnny always said that he was innocent the entire time. According to the police, Johnny gave a confession, this confession was never recorded Johnny claims the police made it up and refused to sign it. Johnny’s confession states that he exited the convent the same way that he came in, through a window, an investigation of the crime scene shows that there was blood on an open door in the convent and that there was no glass on the outside of the broken window which makes people believe that the killer had exited through the door and not that window. Johnny’s fingerprints were found at the crime scene but he said that was because he had been in the convent a lot because he would always be helping the nuns move furniture. Johnny fingerprints were also found on a knife in the nun’s room as well as on her bed, according to Johnny he used that knife to break a lock when looking for things to steal, he went into the nun’s room and saw something valuable above her bed, he reached over to grab it but before he could he heard a loud noise, he didn’t know what it was so he ran away. His lawyers barely saw him...

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